amBX to make its "ambient tech" tool free in 2009

Could see the technology go mainstream

10 December 2008 13:47 GMT / By Verity Burns

amBX is to make its "ambient tech" tool available to developers for free from January.

The SDK offers software developers everything they need to add amBX effects to their games, including test tools and example apps. A support forum will also be launched so developers will have all the information they need to get the most from the tool.

Of course, what this means is that it's more likely we'll be seeing much more ambient technology creeping into our games.

Designed to "bring game play in to the room", amBX's website describes it as "the virtual world reaching out from your screen".

So, when you play the game you'll feel and experience all the action as if you were actually in the game - the movement of vehicles, shifts in lighting, rumbling explosions, ricocheting bullets, the wind in your face - the mix of ambient lighting, vision, sound and tactile sensations is designed to give you a gaming experience like no other.

amBX’s CEO Neil MacDonald said: "The amBX SDK provides developers with everything they need to get quickly up to speed and at no charge".

"It makes amBX very approachable and this will be a major step forward for us as we take the amBX proposition to wider markets and sectors. The whole point of amBX is to immerse the player deeper into the game and the amBX SDK now makes a rather complex operation very simple and extremely low cost".

Look out for PC games containing the technology next year, the tool will be available for free, rather than on a project-by-project basis as previously, on 12 January.

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